Yall didn't have those nutjob preaching types somewhere around the main student walkway? I just assumed most every school has those 1 or 2 people (odds say they're likely pedophiles themselves) yelling about the same stuff, but she is the most creative and informative I've seen. Give those preaching types credit, they absolutely convinced some girls to not have sex and I 100% attribute that to me only getting laid so often.
Odds are yall be in the south, best of luck in regionals unless it's Gainesville. Feels like a minor committment from the Phil Knight slush fund (few million $ a year) could lock up half the West Coast players and stop them from coming the SEC. Wouldn't affect us so please convince Uncle Phil less politics more baseball.
Sizing up the Georgia job opening SEC EXTRA Joe Healy - May 27, 2023 Georgia on Friday announced that it had fired head coach Scott Stricklin after 10 seasons. Under his guidance, the Bulldogs went 299-236-1 overall and 121-146-1 in SEC games. There were some highs for Georgia under Stricklin. The program hosted regionals in 2018 and 2019 and also produced a number of high-end draft picks on the mound like Emerson Hancock, Cole Wilcox, Robert Tyler, Tony Locey, and most recently, Jonathan Cannon, but ultimately, there wasn’t enough postseason success. Spoiler The Bulldogs were eliminated in both of those home regionals and in total made just three regionals in Stricklin’s 10 seasons at the helm (the 2020 season cancellation very likely cost them a fourth). This season, Georgia finished 29-27 overall and 11-19 in SEC play and saw its season end with a loss to South Carolina Tuesday at the SEC Tournament. A late push for the Bulldogs that included a series sweep of Arkansas and a series win over Tennessee at home put them in the postseason discussion down the stretch, but going 1-5 in the last six conference games, including a series sweep at the hands of Missouri, was a backbreaker. Now, Georgia enters just its third coaching search since 2001. Ahead of the search, we’ll size up the Georgia job, run down the positives and negatives of the role and look ahead to what will face the next coach in 2024 and beyond. What Georgia has going for it Any discussion about what the Georgia job has going for it has to start with its easy access to some of the best prep baseball talent in the country. Not only does the state of Georgia, and particularly the suburbs around Atlanta, produce tons and tons of Division I-quality players, but the state also plays host to myriad talent showcases, which bring out-of-state talent to the Bulldogs’ doorstep. The brand is also a strong one across the south, especially now that its football program is rolling. Even if most of that brand reputation stems from the gridiron, that will be enough to at least get in the front doors of a large swath of recruits. Relatedly, Athens is seen as being among the best college towns in the country and a fun place to spend your college years. Georgia—as is the case with all state schools in the Peach State—can also take advantage of the Hope Scholarship program for Georgia high school students. This allows the coaching staff to allocate more of its athletic scholarship budget for out-of-state players and to get more mileage out of its scholarships for in-state talent. The new coach will also walk in the door right as a $45 million upgrade to Foley Field begins in earnest. Though Foley has remained a beautiful setting for games, the upgrades are needed for the program to at least keep pace with the Joneses in the conference, so to speak. And much of the renovation involves things that tend to interest recruits, like new hitting cages, a pitching lab, and new locker rooms and meeting rooms. What Georgia has working against it While Georgia has access to seemingly limitless amounts of prep baseball talent, that far from guarantees that it will bring in enough of it. No one school will ever be able to wall off the Atlanta metro area and have its pick of players because there’s just so much recruiting competition for them. MLB organizations signing many of the top-end prospects also adds to the difficulty of getting the local talent to stay home. And though Georgia might be able to leverage the Hope Scholarship to allocate more athletic scholarship dollars to out-of-state players, out-of-state recruiting is not quite that straightforward because Georgia is an SEC school that doesn’t waive out-of-state tuition for athletes. In terms of on-field results, Georgia has fallen behind in the league. Ten different SEC teams have been to the College World Series more recently than the Bulldogs, and its last trip in 2008 is more or less ancient history to recruits considering the program. History suggests that Georgia isn’t going to be among the programs most willing to go above and beyond in terms of compensation. Stricklin’s deal put him in the middle of the pack in the conference, and you have to wonder if the university eating some of that money from Stricklin’s contract will affect what it’s willing to pay the next coach. Then again, it’s not as if Georgia has cash flow issues in its athletic department, so it can decide to become a big spender if it wants to. There’s not a lot of precedent for that kind of jump in the way a school pays coaches, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen. Maybe there’s nothing to it, but you also have to wonder if history is trying to tell us something about the realities of this job. Going back to the turn of this century, Georgia has made regionals ten times in the 23 full seasons since 2000 and has only made back-to-back regional trips three times and never more than two in a row in that time. Perhaps that suggests that former coaches Dave Perno and Stricklin, who combined to coach the last 21 of those 23 seasons, weren’t able to maximize the job, but it’s worth wondering if there are factors inherent to the job that make it tougher than meets the eye. Roster outlook The single most important thing the new Georgia coach can do is make sure he keeps Charlie Condon on the roster and out of the transfer portal. The good news in this regard is that Condon is an in-state player who grew up a Georgia fan and has been vocal throughout the season about how much he’s enjoying his experience in the program, but you can bet he’s already received overtures to transfer through intermediaries. Even if Condon stays, there’s going to be a lot of roster rebuilding to do. Lineup stalwarts Ben Anderson and Connor Tate have exhausted their eligibility. That is also the case with infielders Mason LaPlante and Will David, who were regulars as graduate transfers this season. Slugger Parks Harber, catcher Fernando Gonzalez and ace lefthander Jaden Woods are also prospects to varying degrees and may elect to sign professional contracts. There are young players on the roster to be excited about beyond Condon, including lefthander Jarvis Evans, righthander Leighton Finley and righthander Kolten Smith, all of whom had prominent roles at various times as freshmen this season. Lefthanders Liam Sullivan and Charlie Goldstein could also return to be foundational pieces in the rotation, but the new coach will likely have to get very comfortable with the transfer portal, especially when it comes to bringing in position players if he’s going to engineer any sort of quick turnaround. Who are the potential candidates? Make no mistake; this is viewed in the coaching community as one of the premier jobs in the country, and the coaches interested in the opening will reflect its standing as such. The coaches who emerge as the frontrunners in this process could tell us quite a bit about how much Georgia really wants to invest in taking its program to the next level. For specifics on coaches who might be in the mix, check out Kendall Rogers’ hot board from Friday. Mark’s take: five leading candidates As a longtime SEC observer, these are five candidates that Mark Etheridge sees as being intriguing fits for Georgia. Chris Pollard, Duke – Georgia fans got an up-close-and-personal view of the Duke skipper when his Blue Devils’ squad rolled through the 2018 losers’ bracket to win the Athens Regional. Pollard has established Duke as an ACC contender, and one would have to surmise he would cherish the opportunity to build a contender in the cutthroat SEC. Dan McDonnell, Louisville – A former Ole Miss assistant before building a monster program in the bluegrass, McDonnell’s reputation speaks for itself. This season was a disappointment, as Louisville missed out on the ACC Tournament. Based on some end-of-year comments, McDonnell has grown frustrated with aspects of the Louisville job. Perhaps a new setting and new challenge will be the next step in his storied career. Justin Haire, Campbell – Haire assembled arguably the best mid-major roster in the country at the Big South power. With SEC resources and cachet, it stands to reason he can upgrade the Georgia talent level as well. He’s a proven winner at Campbell but would need to adjust to the SEC “always on” mindset. Rob Vaughn, Maryland – Vaughn won the Big Ten again this year and led the Terps to a host site a year ago. He’s established as one of the top coaches outside the power four baseball leagues, and it is only a matter of team before he gets the opportunity at the next level. Will this be the job? Cliff Godwin, East Carolina – Godwin signed an extension to remain at East Carolina, but his name will continue to surface for SEC jobs. He can be picky, but the Georgia job upside merits consideration.
Our RPI was 21 before our loss to App State yesterday and I liked our chances. 26 now and I don’t think beating UL today and winning the Sun belt helps us any. Conference champs is dope though. Also being a 2 seed may be better depending where we end up.
The main guy “Brother Jed” died last year. I think he toured almost everywhere in the south at least. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jed
I do think kids should be on a pitch count. So coaches can’t ruin kids careers for the sake of them getting some extra bonuses or keeping their well paid jobs
tell me you have no god damn idea how college baseball works without telling me you have no god damn idea how college baseball works lmbo
The Division I Baseball Committee released the 16 regional hosts, and for the first time ever, half of them will come from one conference: the SEC. We have projected the SEC to host seven regionals all week, but the committee also deemed South Carolina’s overall body of work worthy of an eighth host spot out of the league, despite the Gamecocks losing their last four weekend series and 11 of their last 14 games overall. South Carolina finished with a modest 17-15 aggregate record in the SEC, but it was propped up by a No. 8 RPI and a 20-18 record against the top 50. The Gamecocks hosting is a mild surprise given their brutal last month, but it’s far from a total shocker considering their overall metrics and their superb first half. We believed Campbell (which won the Big South regular-season and conference tournament titles, finished with a No. 14 RPI and a 9-5 record against the top 50 — which isn’t easy to do as a member of the 15th-ranked RPI conference) had a strong case, however. We also would have awarded Southern Miss or Boston College a home regional before the Gamecocks. But the committee saw it differently, and that’s all that matters in the end. The other 15 hosts are as we projected this morning. The ACC lands four hosts, while the Big 12, Missouri Valley, Pac-12 and Sun Belt land one apiece. The 16 hosts, in alphabetical order: Alabama (Tuscaloosa, Ala.) Arkansas (Fayetteville, Ark.) Auburn (Auburn, Ala.) Clemson (Clemson, S.C.) Coastal Carolina (Conway, S.C.) Florida (Gainesville, Fla.) Indiana State (Terre Haute, Ind.) Kentucky (Lexington, Ky.) LSU (Baton Rouge, La.) Miami (Coral Gables, Fla.) Oklahoma State (Stillwater, Okla.) South Carolina (Columbia, S.C.) Stanford (Stanford, Calif.) Vanderbilt (Nashville, Tenn.) Virginia (Charlottesville, Va.) Wake Forest (Winston-Salem, N.C.) The full field of 64, including the order of the 16 national seeds, will be released during the selection show starting at noon ET on Monday.
I was close. South Carolina over Boston College and Indiana St over Campbell. And I’d love to visit y’all in two weekends. We owe y’all an ass whooping!
I ain’t babysitting shit. But if we get paired up and make it there, I’ll try to come up and funnel some fireball shots with y’all.
I could spend an entire weekend with FadeMe and guarantee I won’t break any bones like I did with your sorry ass
Hopefully we end up in at Bama, SC or Auburn. Are any of them even that good? Or do they keep high RPIs just because of the SEC schedule and how that keeps RPIs up?
You’re going to get Paul Skenes and like it. The committee sent LSU to you last year. You get Baton Rouge this year.
Bet I deserve this for letting my 57 year old child ride scooters after we drank that gigantic tower of beer
our waiter said it was 5.5 beers. P sure it was 5.5 pitchers. That was the most fucked I’ve ever been since college, except that one time in Kansas City
So is it reasonable to think that the top eight seeds coming out at noon will be five SEC teams and three ACC teams?
I know they don’t give a shit about logistics when it comes to the supers, but having to go all the way out west to Stanford, if we both advance, what kind of stink when all other teams are in the south/east